BSJ Game Report: Celtics 120, Cavs 113 - Slow start, strong finish, another home win

Everything you need to know about the Celtics win over the Cavaliers with BSJ insight and analysis

IN A NUTSHELL

Jaylen Brown was the only Celtic hitting anything in an 18-4 opening run by the Cavs, but Boston recovered to go into the second down 10. The Celtics put up a 39-point second quarter, briefly taking the lead, thanks in part to Derrick White catching fire from deep and Jayson Tatum exploding for 13. Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis found grooves in the third, giving Boston a lead despite Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland combining for 23. A balanced attack in the fourth, and some better defense, closed out the game.

Box Score

HEADLINES

- Sticking with it: They fell behind by 15 in the first quarter, looking very lethargic and sloppy in the process. On the negative side, it’s less than ideal to have a team come out that poorly after three days off. On the plus side, it happened in the first quarter, where big leads are the most meaningless. 

“As far as the mental toughness to not get caught up in the emotion and to not let it affect our effort, I thought was tremendous,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game. “We fought to execute like we were connected. If we did make mistakes, we made them as a team. And on the offensive end, we really fought to keep our spacing, and we didn't get into tough positions because we were well-spaced and we had good screening reads.”

- Perfect from the line: The Celtics have been weirdly subpar (for them) from the free-throw line. It was the difference in the win here against Cleveland. Boston was +20 from the free throw line, a big deal in a seven-point win. 

“It's something that we always talk about and it goes back to this formula of offensive rebounds, free throws, transition points, turnovers, getting more shots,” Mazzulla said. “I just liked our approach of executing on both ends of the floor throughout the game amidst the emotion.”

- Cavs guards are a pain: I can say “contain Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland” all I want, it doesn’t mean that's going to happen. I came into this season thinking the Cavs would be Boston’s biggest competition, and while that hasn’t panned out yet standings-wise, it’s evident on the floor that they give Boston problems. Even without Evan Mobley, this is a tough team for Boston. 

TURNING POINT

The Celtics went on a 9-0 run after the game was tied at 106 to essentially put the game away. Six of those points were Porzingis free throws. 

THINGS I LIKED

Perseverance: They looked like they’d forgotten how to play basketball after playing just once in a week. They looked god awful. But they stuck with it, and they bounced back to win a tough game. The same goes for Porzingis, who missed everything but two free throws in the first half and then came out to lead Boston with 19 points in the second half. 

The Jays: Tatum and Brown combined for 50 points and nine assists, but that's nowhere near the whole story. I’ll tell that one separately. 

Derrick White: In my forever quest to find clutch baskets outside of the fourth quarter, I submit White’s three consecutive 3-pointers to help make it a two point game midway through the second quarter. That was a massive boost and it changed the game. 

Jrue Holiday: He’s regaining his shooting touch. He was 3-5 on 3-pointers in this game. I know the knock on him is that he’s not quite the offensive player he’s perceived to be, but he’s better than he’s been. It’s good to see some shots falling. 

Sam Hauser (and the bench): The bench came in and helped save this game. Hauser led the +/- gang in this game at a +14, but Al Horford and Payton Pritchard had similar positive impacts. 

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

Cavs 3-point shooting: They shot 19-45 from deep. Mitchell and Max Strus were the main culprits, hitting 10 of them. Garland has been cold this season but him hitting 4-8 is not out of the ordinary. Those are all guys who can hit. It’d be nice to defend them a little. 

Tristan Thompson: No reason here. I just don’t like the guy. 

30-point quarters: It’s going to happen, so it’s not the biggest deal in the world, but giving up 30-point quarters is happening a little too often for my liking. It happened twice in this game. 

HIGHLIGHTS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

The Cavs are always a challenge, so this is a good win: I was shocked to see Boston at -11.5 heading into this game. If I was a sports bettor, I’d have taken Cleveland and the points all day long. 

And that's because even shorthanded, the Cavs are a pain in the butt. Mitchell loves playing against Boston and his buddy Jaylen Brown. Caris LeVert always feels like a threat to explode (and I swear I thought he was going to when he scored three straight buckets in the fourth). It’s just never easy. 

“I think it’s the expectation of, what’s supposed to be an easy matchup? That would be my question to you,” Mazzulla said after the game. “They’re a top-six team in the East. But it’s the NBA. And I get because of we’re just the Celtics and we’re supposed to win it every single year that there’s this expectation of, like, yeah, two or three teams will give you a hard (matchup) but everyone else should be easy. And that’s just not the case, that’s just not the NBA.”

Once again, the Celtics struggled for a stretch, found their footing, came back, and won. They still haven't lost at home. 

“For me, we have to be grateful for games like this because it’s an opportunity in Game 22 to have to play playoff basketball without an In-Season Tournament court,” Mazzulla said, tossing a stray in the direction of the NBA’s new tournament. "I said it in the huddle a few times: We have to be grateful for this. This is a great opportunity. And we have to get rid of the expectation of, like, eh, it’s a tough matchup. Yeah, it’s the NBA, they’re all hard matchups. And if we can accept that, that’s going to help us.”         

Mazzulla is really, really challenging a lot of perceptions and status quo. He’s trying very hard to break people of their normal way of thinking and to come around to a certain mindset. 

To be honest, this kind of stuff is right in my wheelhouse. If you’re wondering why I lean into what Mazzulla is saying, the answers are twofold. 

First: I want to give you coverage of the team through the lens of what the team is trying to accomplish through their coaching. I want to explain what the approach is and then tell you if they're sticking to it or not.

Second: I love challenging the way we normally think. I think groupthink is a real issue, which is why I’m on board making snide comments about timeout usage. Mazzulla called one in the middle of the 18-4 run and it did nothing. White’s 3-point barrage came in the flow of the game. It’s a strong case to support Mazzulla's challenge of conventional thought. 

I love this stuff. I love the reevaluation of how we see the game. I love trying to break the players, and by association … us,  of how they’ve thought of things. 

Winning is hard in the NBA, and beating a team like Cleveland is especially hard. Chalk up another tough win for the Celtics. 

And here’s my final thought on how that last sentence applies to what I was saying prior to that. If the Celtics win a championship, then all these close games become “gritty” wins that show character. But why do we have to wait until they win or lose to classify these games as such? 

Finding ways to win these games is great. Now they have to try to be better on Thursday and win another one.   

Next up: The Celtics and Cavaliers do it again Thursday night here at the Garden.